Tag: Opposition

The Entire World Will Oppose Him and Protest

Hebrews 13

13 Keep being concerned about each other as the Lord’s followers should.

2 Be sure to welcome strangers into your home. By doing this, some people have welcomed angels as guests, without even knowing it.

3 Remember the Lord’s people who are in jail and be concerned for them. Don’t forget those who are suffering, but imagine that you are there with them.

Isaiah 2

Our Lord, you have deserted
    your people, Israel,
because they follow customs
    of nations from the east.
They worship Philistine gods
and are close friends
    of foreigners.[b]
7 They have endless treasures
    of silver and gold;
they have countless horses
    and war chariots.
8 Everywhere in the country
they worship the idols
    they have made.
9 And so, all of them
will be ashamed and disgraced.
    Don’t help them!

I Am Relating with Two Worlds

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 20, 1959

Romans 7: 15-25

Because Heaven has been working the providence to fulfill His great purpose, His ultimate goal, we should also long for and prepare for the one day when the greatest goal is accomplished. For this reason it is said that the Last Days are coming. What kind of time is the Last Days? It is the time when Heaven and earth meet as mind and body, when the world ideology and all thought come together and when our minds and bodies unite. When they come together, what will they sing of? They will sing of the life of the mind and a world which can connect through the heart. You are to sing with the universe. However, such a day and such a world have not emerged on the earth.

Heaven has been working toward that world. That world is the ultimate goal of Heaven. It is the ultimate goal of humanity. To become someone who will prevail until that day, you have to engage in unspeakable conflict with your body. You should keep to your pledges without a change of heart and never waver from your determination.

If there is someone who goes forth with such a determination, his body will protest, his family will oppose him, his society, nation, and the world will protest in order to break his determination. You have to understand that the whole world is attacking such a person. This demonstrates that the greater the truth you come to understand, the greater the opposition you will face.

Christians say that they are heading toward Heaven. They claim that they are walking toward the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet they forgot that great enemies are waiting for them on the path toward the great ideology. You have to keep in mind that there are great enemies.

What is the ultimate goal of these enemies? It is the body. The target of our enemies is our body. Threats to life, threats on the levels of society and the nation and of Heaven and earth are posed against our bodies. St. Paul experienced this in his life. When he appeared before his people, he was considered an enemy. When he went to foreign lands, he was the foreign enemy. When he stood before the church, he was the enemy of the church.

No matter what religions there may be in this world, Christianity and so forth, they will certainly be judged. They will not overcome it so easily. To do so, they need to explain themselves completely. Because there is this providential relationship on the world level, in the course of seeking our true selves centering on our minds, we are confronted with suffering on the world level.

The closer we come to the Last Days, world level fear comes from all directions. Hence, the closer we come to the Last Days, the more conscientious people are overwhelmed with fear. You have witnessed this around you already. Thus, there will come a time when conscientious and artistic people, particularly those who are in academia, will be swayed by waves of fear which will restrict them from living freely. This is how it is right now. This has been manifested through panic and widespread fear.

We who are living in the Last Days today are different from people in the past. Because this is the era of a world ideology, someone should appear who can put everything on the line, strike the external spheres into harmony with the heavenly heart and say, “Father! I have won the victory.” Isn’t this so? Heaven hopes to create such a person, and Satan has opposed this attempt on the part of Heaven.

This world is not a heavenly world; it is under the sovereignty of evil. If such a person appears in this world of evil sovereignty, then the entire world will oppose him and protest. Those who strike him, however, will perish. Individuals who strike will submit; families who oppose will submit; and the society which opposes him will submit. Moreover, when nations and the world submit after putting up opposition, the final decision will be made. From this we should learn that the flow of history is the external manifestation of a small individual on the world level.

Do I Possess the Faith and Loyalty to Stand in Front of the Messiah?

View pictures from the Urban Family Life Success and Happiness Training Workshop: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmEW6UBN.

Acts 17

5 The Jewish leaders were jealous and got some worthless bums who hung around the marketplace to start a riot in the city. They wanted to drag Paul and Silas out to the mob, and so they went straight to Jason’s home. 6 But when they did not find them there, they dragged out Jason and some of the Lord’s followers. They took them to the city authorities and shouted, “Paul and Silas have been upsetting things everywhere. Now they have come here, 7 and Jason has welcomed them into his home. All of them break the laws of the Roman Emperor by claiming that someone named Jesus is king.”

Richard: If you are doing the will of God, then you will definitely face opposition.

Ezekiel 39

11 After Gog has been destroyed, I will bury him and his army in Israel, in Travelers’[a] Valley, east of the Dead Sea. That graveyard will be so large that it will block the way of anyone who tries to walk through the valley,[b] which will then be known as “The Valley of Gog’s Army.”[c]12 The Israelites will spend seven months burying dead bodies and cleaning up their land. 13 Everyone will help with the burial, and they will be honored for this on the day the brightness of my glory is seen. 14 After those seven months, the people will appoint a group of men to look for any dead bodies left unburied. This must be done for seven months to make sure that the land is no longer unclean. 15 Whenever they find a human bone, they will set up a marker next to it. Then the gravediggers will bury it in “The Valley of Gog’s Army” 16 near the town of “Gog’s Army.” After that, the land will be pure again.

Man Is an Explorer in Search of Truth

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
July 19, 1959

John 10: 1-18

Most of all, the time has come for us to long for the holy embodiment of Jesus Christ, the heart which flows out of him, and his desperate ideal. He wished blessing upon all people even as he perished as a criminal on the cross, he who had come into this world as the Messiah of all people.

I sincerely pray that You will forgive us. We have praised ourselves and disdained the creation and all things and have elevated ourselves to disdain Heavenly Father, although we should be disdaining ourselves.

If we want to move toward a truthful heart and true goodness, please allow us to realize that we are debtors in front of Heaven and earth, and that we are a sinful race which has been violently scarred throughout the course of human history. Father, the only things we need are the hearts that can seek for You and the loyalty that can seek out our true selves. Please allow us those things.

We cannot deny that the life course that Jesus led was a sorrowful path of tears. We also realize that every page of history is bound together by bloody battles. Therefore, I sincerely pray, Father, that You will allow us to realize that we cannot clarify anything in history when we uplift ourselves, and that we are like a failure who does not have anything to show throughout the ages.

We therefore believe that we need a true leader who possesses true life and a true heart. He is the savior and Messiah God sends for humankind. Please allow us to reflect upon ourselves in this hour: to reflect upon whether we possess the faith and loyalty to stand in front of the Messiah. In receiving the Messiah, we know that Heavenly Father desires for humankind to possess the greatest of enthusiasm, the greatest of loyalty, and the greatest whole-heartedness. It requires the greatest sincerity and a desperate heart which has nothing to do with Satan. Although we may not stand in such a position, Father, I sincerely pray that You may guide us to become humble sons and daughters who can kneel down and long for the blessing of redemption with the heart that longs for such a position.

Father, how can we respond to the words given to us? Father, please be with us. Although we have listened to many words, walked many paths, and lived through many situations, we stand in front of You empty-handed, having nothing to return to You. Father, do not drive us away but have pity. I sincerely pray that in this hour we may empty all of our minds and bodies so that only the Father will have dominion over us and only the Father’s blessing can fill us.

Please allow the heart of the giver and the hearts of the receivers to be one. I sincerely pray that this may be the hour when those hearts can harmonize into one so that the Father’s heart can be felt and the Father’s blessing can be directly received. I pray all these things in the name of the Lord. Amen.

Your Parents and Spouse may Oppose You in the Last Days

John 4

1Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.

Richard: Our role as disciples of Jesus is crucial.

Ezekiel 32

1In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month on the first day, the word of the Lord came to me: 2“Son of man, take up a lament concerning Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him:

“ ‘You are like a lion among the nations;

you are like a monster in the seas

thrashing about in your streams,

churning the water with your feet

and muddying the streams.

3“ ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“ ‘With a great throng of people

I will cast my net over you,

and they will haul you up in my net.

4I will throw you on the land

and hurl you on the open field.

I will let all the birds of the sky settle on you

and all the animals of the wild gorge themselves on you.

Let Us Join In the Pursuit of the Homeland

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 22, 1957
Chung Pa Dong Church
Seoul, Korea

John 14: 1-7

As a person who lived on earth with a physical body, Jesus could have displayed his emotions of filial piety toward his parents, but he could not do that. He could not have a relationship with a spouse. Because he knew that the bitterness of God had not yet been alleviated, he abandoned a comfortable environment. He cut off all the trivial relationships of the world. This is the situation those who are searching for the world of the heavenly way today must inevitably go through.

Therefore, because there were the conditions of the heavenly principles that constrained him to selectively do certain things, Jesus was silent even when he was rejected by his family and society, and even when falsely accused by Satan. He could not say anything. Jesus could not find the bride for which God had yearned in humankind on earth for 6,000 years. He could not find one son or daughter. Who could he blame?

What then is Jesus’ wish? It is that you become true people who, as the central figures who can unite with Jesus, can inherit the whole ideology of Jesus concerning life, husband and wife, and parents. Moreover, Jesus hoped for a person who could materialize the ideology of love. When such a person emerges, there will come a time when Jesus can frankly discuss with him the situations of God.

Because this kind of person did not emerge, God’s dispensation until now has been covered up. It could not be revealed. Moreover, Jesus was in a position where he could not divulge it even if he wanted. The reason is that there did not appear one true person who could fulfill the ideology of goodness on earth for the original ideology. Thus, the dispensation of God has remained a symbolic dispensation. As a result, our destiny is to unfold this symbolic dispensation of God into substantial manifestation.

Since the creation of the world until now, there was not even one person to whom God could reveal everything in His heart and consult with honestly. Moreover, after Jesus passed away until now, not even one person has appeared to whom He could reveal all of his ideas and share them. You probably know well that the substantial environment in which the entire ideology of Jesus could be realized did not come into fruition.

Who then must become the objects of God and Jesus on behalf of history? All people must become the objects of Jesus and God’s love. Until you cross this line, you cannot create the bond with parents, spouses and with the nation which will allow you to sing in praise of the eternal relations.

As you try to search for the original road today, there will come a time when all conditions of this earth will pull you down. The closer you go toward the Last Days, the less you can deal exclusively with the things you like. They have to be changed. Only then can you cross the pass of judgment. Moreover, you can then build the eternal bonds of parents, husband and wife, and the substantial bonds of a nation.

If there is someone who is searching for the ideology of Heaven in the Last Days, often that person’s parents will oppose him. When you go in search of the ideology, your parents will cut themselves off from you. Husbands and wives will be separated from each other, and there will be divisions in the nation and the world.

Therefore, you have to walk the course that Jesus traveled. Jesus was abandoned by his parents, his brothers, and by the church, the nation, and the world. However, because Jesus clung onto the unchanging laws and ideology of the heavenly principles with the heart of a shepherd, his ideology survived. Moreover, a victorious environment centering on Jesus was created.

Similarly, because humanity chased Jesus out, by the principles of restoration through indemnity, the people who seek Jesus must walk through the environment in which parents, spouses and the nation oppose them. You have to have this kind of determination.

Furthermore, you must connect with the unchanging bonds with parents under heavenly law and the bonds between original couples. You must establish the uniform ideology of life based on the relationship of the bride about which Jesus spoke. You have to serve God and love the earth, and you must be loyal to the nation. After these things are achieved, Jesus’ wishes will be fulfilled, and God’s love can finally make a relationship with human beings.